Queen was almost assassinated in 1981: report

Queen was almost assassinated in 1981: report

Queen Elizabeth II attends Christmas Day Church service at Church of St Mary Magdalene on December 25, 2017 in King's Lynn, England. (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

The Queen could have died from an assassin’s bullet back in 1981, but the story was kept a closely-guarded secret, according to a new report.

The publication The Stuff has claimed that a bullet went whistling past the British monarch’s head as she stepped out of a Rolls Royce in 1981 while on a diplomatic tour of New Zealand.

The report alleges that a New Zealand man, Christopher John Lewis, 17, had fired a .22 rifle as the large crowd cheered, totally unaware they had nearly witnessed Elizabeth’s assassination.

According to the article, authorities covered up the near miss. Shamed New Zealand police allegedly kept the serious incident a secret–until now, a new investigation reveals.

The horrifying incident allegedly occurred in 1981, the same year both then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were shot. Reagan was hit by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C. in March 1981, but the U.S. leader recovered in a hospital. So did the Pope, who was shot by a would-be assassin in St. Peter’s Square in Italy in May 1981.

Now a former Kiwi police officer, Tom Lewis, who worked on the Queen’s 1981 case, has told The Stuff, a true file doesn’t exist about it: “It was reactivated, regurgitated, bits pulled off it, other false bits put on.”

Lewis could have been tried for treason and sentenced to death if found guilty — yet in a bid to cover the murder attempt up, the story alleged, an order was given to downgrade charges to possession of a firearm in a public place and discharging it.

Murray Hanan, Lewis’s former lawyer, said,”The fact an attempted assassination of the Queen had taken place in New Zealand, it was too politically hot to handle. I think the government took the view that he is a bit nutty and has had a hard upbringing, so it won’t be too harsh.”

Lewis attempted to write an autobiography called “Last Words” in which he unmasked the alleged cover up of his deed.

At the time the teenager said a British man named “the snowman” had ordered him to kill the royal.

Lewis was allegedly questioned eight times after the attempted attack and his apartment included a detailed map of the Queen’s route that day with the words “‘Operation = Ass QUEB,” apparently the name he’d given his mission.

He was put in a psychiatric ward.

Former police officer Tom Lewis said Prime Minister Robert Muldoon feared the royals wouldn’t come back to New Zealand if they realized it had been an assassination attempt.

In 1997, Lewis killed himself in Mt. Eden Prisons in Auckland, at the age of 33.

Amid this new report, and with the royals planning the May wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, security concerns are sure to be paramount.

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